


Late-Night Ponderings

by ohitsthatchumlord



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean is sad and tired and wants to sleep, Gen, Insomnia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28696449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohitsthatchumlord/pseuds/ohitsthatchumlord
Summary: Dean can't sleep and the loneliness of one, in a long line of many, dingy motel rooms, finally gets to him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 28





	Late-Night Ponderings

**Author's Note:**

> So, I found a finished work I wrote in 2015 and thought I'd post it. Like damn, I could write better 6 years ago than I can now. 
> 
> This is set anywhere from season 4-5 onward, just pretty much after Cas is introduced. Also, can be read as platonic if you want.

Dean had begun to get an ache in his chest. It was a strange phenomenon he didn't understand, but the strange, strangled feeling had begun to crawl up his throat. 

The motel him and Sam were staying at was pretty shitty. The walls were covered in an unidentifiable substance, and the beds were uncomfortable with barely susceptible covers, making Dean not able to sleep. The feeling in his chest that usually stayed on the back burners of his consciousness, until the lonely motel room had brought them back.

Laying on the cheap motel bed had begun as just another attempt at remaining on the schedule of research, hunt, drive, acquire another shitty motel room to keep them sheltered for a couple nights, then sleep for about four hours before repeating the process all over again. This time, however, brought a hitch into Dean's plans for the night. Sleep refused to wash over him.

With the tiresome routine plaguing his mid, Dean's mind wandered towards, what he deemed as, trivial emotional issues distracting him from the bliss that was sleep. Dean refused to have “chick-flick moments”, even within the confines of his own head. The ache dulled Dean's sense of time, and dragged minutes over his body like scratchy comforters you know hadn't been remotely near a washing machine in decades.

Dean remained in this state for some time. The motel room was still shitty, Sam was still Sam, and Dean was still lonely. The life of a hunter left no room for any sort of 'apple pie life', not even some of the whip cream on top. This life offered no comfort for a lonely hunter that had, arguably saved the world more times than he could count. Dean wanted a vacation. A chance to do something that didn't involve a dreary existence that revolved around death and destruction.

Sure, Dean and Sam saved people's lives on a regular basis, but when did they get a vacation? Even just enough of one, to fill the void in Dean's chest, if only for a moment.

Sighing, Dean brought his sheet up further to enclose his face within total darkness and silence. Sam's slight snores were drowned out, but the pounding within Dean's chest seemed to spasm violently without that sound of human contact. Dean's throat began to squeeze in a way of announcing the oncoming wave of tears, but Dean choked them back. His heart gave one final tug and Dean removed his head from the all encompassing cocoon.

The startled gasp Dean gave at seeing and hearing the arrival of his angel, only seemed to add to the frantic buzz within him. Dean's stomach clenched in discomfort, his throat tightened in an effort to force Dean's tears to fall, and his heart beat faster to inform Dean that he was having a “chick-flick moment” whether he wanted to or not.

Castiel stepped closer to where Dean lay, and whispered his usual greeting of “Hello Dean.” Instantaneously, the ache in Dean's chest turned into a soft throbbing, but his throat continued to choke him of his breath and his stomach now introduced a flurry of activity that almost had Dean scared of what was happening to him. Castiel tilted his head in question, when Dean hadn't answered him in the allotted time befit of normal conversational flow.

Fearing that he would sob out his words if he answered, Dean managed a half-assed grunt that signified acknowledgment. Castiel's brow furrowed in further confusion of Dean's state of discomfort.

“Dean, are you well?” the angel's rough raspy tone broke through Dean's protective wall of bullshit, wrapping around it and beginning to tug it away, but not without flooding Dean's mind with what he wanted. He wanted so much, but knew it was impossible.

His angel stretched a hand to touch Dean's cheek, wiping away the silent tears that had begun to flow long before. In a voice too soft to be thought of as an angel of the lord, Castiel asked “Dean, tell me what it is that burdens you like this? His finger's had brushed beneath Dean's eyes, taking with it straggling salt water drops that had treasonously fallen on Dean's stubbled cheeks.

Dean leaned into the palm that now rested on his face, providing a divine warmth that Dean had never felt before. It soothed his burning throat, but the riot in his stomach still would not calm down. Dean's heart clenched in a way that Dean suspected was a way of holding on to this feeling, of Castiel's warm hand on his face. Dean finally spoke, but it was laced with a tiredness so deep that even the angel had trouble understanding how Dean could still be moving. “Cas..” 

The warmth spread from Dean's cheek down his neck and into his chest, where the ache was no longer actively making Dean miserable, but where a fluttering was making Dean calm and content.

Castiel smiled softly down at the Righteous Man. _His Righteous Man._ Castiel's grace flowed lightly around Dean's person to soothe him into sleep. Dean's eye's closed slowly, his stubbornness apparent when his lids kept flickering back open in an effort to struggle. The angel's slight chuckle was the last thing Dean heard before he drifted off into a comfortable dreamscape.

**Author's Note:**

> Why in the actual hell does ao3 not keep my paragraph indents and then won't let me use tab to indent my paragraphs manually??
> 
> I really didn't edit this, so sorry if there are any egregious spelling/grammar mistakes.


End file.
